TEHRAN (FNA)– Graphic designers from around the world will take part at the first “Return of the Century” international graphic workshop in Iran to support the cause of the Palestinian people’s right to return to their own land.

Secretary of the International Union of Unified Ummah (IUUU) Alireza Komeili said on Monday morning that the first iteration of the international poster workshop is slated to kick off in Iran’s Eastern city of Mashhad this week.

“The workshop seeks to promote an artistic confrontation to Americans’ insolence in backing Israel and floating the dangerous idea of the ‘deal of the century’,” Komeili said.

The event will be held in a bid to raise awareness about the Israeli occupation of Palestine and US President Donald Trump’s so-called “deal of the century” which is designed to do away with the Palestinian people’s right to return to their own land.

According to Komeili, the three-day event will focus on the three main issues of the “deal of the century”, Arab countries’ normalization of ties with Israel and America’s recognition of Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s so-called capital.

The workshop will be attended by graphic designers from 12 countries, including 30 artists from Iran.

Komeili said 40 posters will be selected at the end of the event to be showcased by pro-Palestinian groups around the world on the Nakba Day (the Day of Catastrophe) as well as the International Quds Day.

On Sunday, A senior leader of the Hamas resistance movement stated that Palestinians will never agree to Trump’s controversial proposal for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, dubbed “the deal of the century”.

Addressing a national meeting of the leaders of Palestinian political factions in Gaza City on Saturday, Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas political bureau, stressed that Hamas would make use of all its potential and capabilities to confront the American scheme, calling for unity among Palestinian parties in the face of the plot, presstv reported.

“We are able to achieve national unity and run our Palestinian homeland without much effort if there is great will and genuine intention. Our nation is utterly determined to protect the Palestinian cause. It is steadfast to deal with the deal of the century, no matter what the challenges or sacrifices could be,” Haniyeh pointed out.

He added, “The Palestinian nation will remain in the occupied territories and confront arrogance until we achieve freedom and independence.”

Haniyeh further warned that Washington was determined to liquidate the Palestinian cause through the so-called deal of the century.

He pointed out that the US attempted to completely destroy the Palestinian cause through rejection of Palestinian refugees’ right of return, abolition of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, giving green light to Israel’s official annexation of settlements in the occupied West Bank, and fomenting political rift between the Palestinian factions based in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Haniyeh underlined that the political agenda of all Israeli parties was based on this ideology: “No to the return of Palestinian refugees, no to the establishment of a Palestinian state and no to al-Quds as the capital of Palestine.”

The senior Palestinian official then said Hamas was ready to enter talks with other Palestinian factions to form a national unity government.

Haniyeh reiterated that Palestinian land belonged only to Palestinians and that they would not give an inch of it to the occupying regime of Israel.

The Hamas official also called on all Palestinians across the world to stand against Washington’s so-called deal of the century.

Trump’s so-called “peace plan” has been dismissed by Palestinian authorities ahead of its unveiling at the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan and the formation of the new Israeli cabinet, most likely in June.

Speaking in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah in mid-April, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh lashed out at Trump’s initiative, asserting that it was “born dead.”

Shtayyeh noted that negotiations with the US were useless in the wake of the country’s relocation of its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem al-Quds, which Palestinians consider the capital city of their future state.

Introduction by GA: Forward’s Editor Jane Eisner is frustrated. She believes that the US and its Constitution have betrayed the Jews. In the following article Eve Mykytyn suggests that Mrs. Eisner doesn’t grasp the constitution and is pretty removed from the American ethos.

By Eve Mykytyn

Jane Eisner wrote an editorial in The Forward on Sunday entitled, “Spare Me your Thoughts and Prayers. The US Has Betrayed Its Jews.” Her thesis is that by abiding by a “perverted, outdated, self-serving view” of the constitution, the government has failed in its “oblig[ation] to ensure that citizens have the freedom to live lives of dignity, equality and security.”

Specifically she blames the Second Amendment right to bear arms which she claims “was not meant to turn America into a killing field,” and the freedom of speech clause of the First Amendment which she opines, “was not meant to allow a few powerful, private corporations to ignore their civic responsibilities to prevent incitement and promote social harmony.”

Ms Eisner dismissively allows that “scholars” have noted that the Constitution was drafted to define rights as “negative rights.” She bemoans the lack of emphasis on “positive rights,” that would make it the duty of the “government to ensure that citizens have the freedom to live lives of dignity, equality and security.”

Perhaps Ms Eisner has failed to read the Constitution which sets forth the various powers of the federal government and then in its amendments makes clear its intent that the government interfere with its citizens to the least extent possible. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments specifically grant nonenumerated rights and powers to the States or the people. Importantly, even the 14th Amendment which has expanded certain rights of citizens is phrased in the negative. “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens… ; nor …deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person … the equal protection of the laws.”

Nowhere is there a positive obligation placed on the government to ensure that its citizens “live lives of dignity, equality and security.” Instead the constitution prescribes equality under the law and protection from government interference. Understanding this makes axiomatic the right to own a gun or to allow speech that Ms Eisner does not like.

Yet, Eisner claims the federal government has totally failed in its “central” job to “protect its people.” From what constitutional or other law does Eisner derive this “central job?” Would a government attempt to prevent attacks on what Eisner calls “vulnerable minorities (her list – Jews, African Americans or Muslims or gays and lesbians or random children in a school.) by eliminating guns and free speech deprive all of us of liberties?

The United States has existed for 240 years with our constitution and its particular blend of rights and obligations. Ms Eisner apparently seeks to add additional restrictions in order to ensure the safety of the Jews. This is a dangerous route. The framers (of the Constitution and its Amendments) were wise enough to understand that positive obligations placed on the government must be balanced by the burdens they place on individual freedom. If we were to enact some version of Eisner’s ‘dignity and security’ we would be inviting the government to control more aspects of our lives.

Neither private citizens nor corporations are obliged to let everyone speak nor to police other’s speech. And fortunately, there is no exception to free speech that requires media to “prevent incitement and promote social harmony” even if one could somehow determine precisely what speech that would prohibit. Ms Eisner has it exactly wrong, free speech is most meaningful in allowing political criticism which indeed may not promote social harmony. See.

While some may plan nefarious deeds on Facebook, information can and is published in other ways. The shooter in Poway, John Ernest, posted his manifesto on pastebin. It is also possible that by allowing the type of speech that Ms Eisner does not like, anger may be defused. Christopher Poole, creator of 4chan, said he was often thanked for providing an outlet to vent frustrations.

Ms Eisner charges that “America has failed its Jews.” Her solution is to change the constitution and limit freedom in ways that are foreign both to the intent and to the various interpretations of the constitution. Nor is it at all clear that suppressing speech and prohibiting guns (especially given the number of guns already owned) would end terrorist shootings.

Yosef Berger, the rabbi of King David’s Tomb on Mount Zion, said that “[the shooting] is clearly Hashem telling the Jews to come home, to return to Jerusalem because “the sanctity of Israel can protect the Jews.” Perhaps Rabbi Berger could explain why God does not protect the Jews wherever they are.

My battle for truth and freedom involves some expensive legal services. I hope that you will consider committing to a monthly donation in whatever amount you can give. Regular contributions will enable me to avoid being pushed against a wall and to stay on top of the endless harassment by Zionist operators attempting to silence me.

The ISIL Takfiri group’s elusive supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his first purported appearance in five years in a propaganda video released Monday, acknowledging ISIL’s defeat in the Syrian town of Baghouz while threatening “revenge” attacks.

The world’s most wanted man was last seen in Mosul in 2014, announcing the birth of ISIL’s “caliphate” across swathes of Iraq and Syria, and appears to have outlived the proto-state.

In the video released by ISIL’s Al-Furqan media arm, the man said to be Baghdadi referred to the months-long fight for ISIL’s final redoubt Baghouz, which ended in March.

“The battle for Baghouz is over,” he said, sitting cross-legged on a cushion and addressing three men whose faces have been blurred.

He referred to a string of ISIL defeats, including its onetime Iraqi capital Mosul and Sirte in Libya, but insisted the Takfiri terrorists had not “surrendered” territory.

“God ordered us to wage ‘jihad.’ He did not order us to win,” he said.

In a segment in which the man is not on camera, his voice described the April 21 Easter attacks in Sri Lanka, which killed 253 people and wounded nearly 500, as “vengeance for their brothers in Baghouz.”

The man insisted ISIL’s operations against the West were part of a “long battle,” and that the Takfiri group would continue to “take revenge” for members who had been killed.

“There will be more to come after this battle,” he said.

On Monday ISIL terrorists claimed their first attack in Bangladesh in more than two years, saying they had “detonated an explosive device” on a group of police in Dhaka, wounding three officers, the SITE Intelligence Group reported.

US Army Terrorists, Allied Militants Killed in Several Blasts in Raqqa

TEHRAN (FNA)– A least two US Army terrorists and 20 Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been killed in recent blasts and attacks on their military positions in the city of Raqqa.

The US Army terrorists were killed in a series of blasts in Raqqa City, including a bomb blast hitting a US Army military vehicle, the Arabic-language al-Mayadeen TV network reported.

The report also noted that 16 SDF fighters were killed in attacks and explosions against their military positions and patrols in Fonoun school, Shahid Bassel Street, areas near al-Baladi stadium, al-Qattar Street and near Electricity Company in Raqqa City.

The recent blasts and attacks have sparked tensions in the region.

In a relevant development earlier this monht, sources said the US Army deployed ISIL commanders and terrorists in the security bodies of the Syrian Democratic Forces in Raqqa paving the way for fleeing of a large number of militants from SDF prisons after paying large amount of cash, sources said.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) quoted informed sources as saying that former ISIL commanders and terrorists who had still been in Raqqa before the SDF gained control of the region are now in charge of different security responsibilities, including traffic police and similar responsibilities in the town of Ain Issa in Western Raqqa.

It said militants were asking for bribes and taxes from vehicles, which had enraged citizens.

The US State Department designated Saudi Arabia as one of the world’s “worst violators” of religious freedoms, even as Riyadh remains one of Washington’s top allies in the region.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom [USCIRF] released its 2019 report on Monday listing Saudi Arabia in the tier one category of countries that implement severe violations of religious freedom.

The annual report, released by the bipartisan organization created two decades ago, highlights the discrimination that Shia Muslims and Christians face in the country.

“Shia Muslims in Saudi Arabia continue to face discrimination in education, employment, and the judiciary, and lack access to senior positions in the government and military,” the 234-page report said.

“As a matter of law, the Saudi government bans the public practice of non-Muslim faiths by citizens and expatriates alike. While the Saudi government has stated repeatedly that non-Muslims who are not converts from Islam may practice their religion in private, this policy has not been codified,” the reported added.

Last week, Saudi Arabia executed 37 people on ‘terrorism’ charges.

Thirty-two of those executed were from Saudi Arabia’s Shia minority and a number of them were juveniles when they were arrested, including a teenager who had planned to study in the US.

The US placed Saudi Arabia as one of the world’s top “countries of particular concern” or CPCs in November 2018.

However, Johnnie Moore, USCIRF’s commissioner who wrote the profile on Saudi Arabia, said promoting “punitive measures” against the kingdom would be counterproductive.

“Such punitive measures could likely have the effect of forcing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to engage directly and more seriously with countries where religious freedom is not a consideration at all in their foreign policy priorities,” he said.

The State Department recommends granting Saudi Arabia a special waiver because the country is an “important interest to the United States”, the report said.

Saudi Arabia and the US share a deep alliance. The US purchases Saudi oil while the kingdom has ordered billions of dollars of arms from the United States.

Saudi Arabia was the first overseas country visited by US President Donald Trump after he became president in 2017, and his visit to Riyadh came just weeks before Saudi Arabia, the UAE and their allies initiated a blockade of Qatar.

Trump has continued to stress the importance of the US alliance with Saudi Arabia even after the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which prompted near global condemnation.

When the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is satisfied with the explanations of the Egyptian mediator about the circumstances which led to Palestinian missiles on Tel Aviv because he fears going to war on the eve of the elections after it was an ideal electoral chance, and when neither the American gifts nor the Russian ones benefit in granting Netanyahu the secure decisive winning swaying between one vote and another against a new-born party formed by retired generals who did not present any new political vision, but they manipulate with the words of the Likud, and when Netanyahu begs the voters to go to the polls two hours before they are closed because the voters are not interested seriously in the elections and the participation is less than before then that is enough to know that the electoral fuss is not a sign of strength,,, and that Israel is weaker than a cobweb.

The strength of Israel exists only in the Arab rhetoric that wants to justify defeat, normalization, and what is demanded by America to serve the weak Israel. What cannot be taken by America and Israel from the Palestinians, the Arabs are demanded to snatch. The talk of the Arab rulers, elites, and Palestinian or Lebanese political leaders about the danger of the “deal of the century”, the danger of the announcement of Jerusalem as a capital of Israel, and the American recognition of the annexation of Golan to Israel reflects their fear of the their rhetoric which fell and their position which is swaying, simply because they built their policies on the hypothesis of a settlement with the occupation entity and they see it dispersing in front of their eyes. They see that the US desperate policy from finding a Palestinian partner who signs for the security of Israel paves the way for the equation of the conflict of existence rather than the conflict of borders on which the Arab official and partisan theories based half a century ago. This means; the recognition of those who adopt from the beginning the theory of the conflict of existence.

What is going on is a unification of the territories occupied since 1967 and the territories occupied since 1948, therefore it is a curse on the occupation and on those who built their discourse on separating the fate of theses occupied territories; because territories of 1967 became Arab, while territories of 1948 became Israeli. So those who cry for the new American recognition do not deny that they were willing to barter an American recognition of the Arab descent of the 1967 territories with Arab recognition of the Israeli decent of the 1948 territories. This is the essence of the Arab peace initiative. But if Israel was able to bear its cost it would do so, and won and embarrassed the resistance forces and their allies.

The most important result of the Israeli elections is the boycotting of more than four-fifths of the Arab voters because the fall of the settlement project has reunited the people of the occupied territories in 1948 with the people of the occupied territories in 1967 and has ended the bets on the lie of the Israeli democracy after the declaration of a Jewish state. Therefore the Palestinians responded by ending the bet on the lie of the western democracy on the remembrance of the fall of Baghdad by the US invasion.

It is no longer important who will form the government of the occupation; since it is a government of vacancy, loss, and Diaspora. Netanyahu who wants to form the government and who is the most prominent candidate for such a task has to prepare himself to face the hour of truth. But how can the government of the cobweb withstand?